Your teen might be thinking to himself something along the lines of: “I’d like to send pictures of certain parts of my body to my girlfriend, Isabel. Come to think of it, I would like it if she shared pictures of herself with me, too. Hey, you know what? It’s really easy to do.”

Sexting is the inevitable result of the convergence of three separate phenomena: the strong urge – common to all humans – to share pictures of themselves, their friends and pets with others; the technological advances that let them quickly record and send messages, images and videos of whatever they wish wherever and whenever they want; and the very strong sexual feelings of teenagers.